Article Marketing Edge

Publicity is a great way to let others know of your business, your products or your book. But is it easy to get booked on radio shows, TV shows, in newspapers and magazines? It is when you know the publicity strategy to get you in the door that you can be successful. The media appreciates a prepared professional but you don’t have to be a career publicist to act and look like one. You need to know what it takes to get the media’s attention, prepare and pitch. You can enjoy publicity and exposure just like your competitors.

Always have your press materials for your book promotion & publicity fully developed before you even begin the pitching process. To effectively promote your book, you’ll need a segment style press release created especially for radio, TV or print, a media kit and video resume for National TV. After you pitch your media contact, your media contract will most likely ask you to send your book promotion materials to them. Any delay will cost you your credibility. Always do what you say you are going to do! Promoting and publicizing your book successfully depends upon the skill and quality that you present to the media.

It’s a good idea to build a set of goals for yourself. This way, you can target certain shows or media placements you would like to have in advance. Once you identify where you want to go, you can contact the outlets to be sure you are connecting with the right media people. When you identify your target contacts at your target media you can start the pitching process. Knowing the right people in the media who work in your area of expertise and pitching directly to them will save you a lot of time. Start small so you can learn the ropes and then go into the bigger markets or media placements. Starting small allows you to make a few learning mistakes without doing too much damage to your plan.

Be sure to read the newspapers you want to target, subscribe to your target magazines and start following the stories and the journalists before you start pitching. You want to create your best chance of success and one way to do this is to build up a rich history of knowledge on what your target media has covered and how they covered it. This way, you don’t waste time and opportunity by pitching a story they just covered. You can pitch the logical, next level idea that increases the chances your target media will be interested.

The media has a sharp eye and can spot a beginner. It is risky to work with a beginner because of the confidence factor and the untested nature of a beginner. The media wants rock solid experts for their commentary and any uncertainty that you have in your ability will stick out like a sore thumb to them. Your pitch call is an audition for you. If you sound afraid, shy, or stumble on your words the media will be hesitant to book you on the show or quote you as an expert. Practice makes perfect and the idea is to practice your presentation and pitching skills first, before you call important media. Consider media training as this is a fast track to removing the fear and gain the skill set to look and sound like a professional publicist.